Term-time holiday ban would criminalise parents, supreme court told

But government lawyers argue parents should not be allowed to take children from school ‘when the sun is out’

Parents will be criminalised on an unprecedented scale if judges reverse an earlier ruling that overturned a ban on term-time holidays, the supreme court has been told.

Lawyers representing Jon Platt, who was fined after taking his daughter out of school for a week, argued that, with more than 4m days of unauthorised absence in England’s state schools each year, reversing the earlier ruling would criminalise parents.